Foundation for Water & Energy Education
How Can Work Be Done with Water Power? Activity C
Third in a set of lessons regarding reservoirs, dams, and hydropower, this involves a two-day hydropower plant simulation. Collaborative groups build, maintain, and finance the plant. The transparency of the reservoir setup can be...
Discovery Education
Clutter Cutter
Challenge young learners to cut the clutter with this fun engineering project. As employees of a home and office supply company, young engineers are asked to develop devices that organize everyday items. After participating in a...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Engineer a Dam
To begin the learning about dams, learners read (or are read to, depending on the age group) a passage about how dams work. Next, they work in groups to use the materials provided to build a small scale working dam. After the experience,...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Working with Wind Energy
After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Shake it up with Seismographs!
Shake things up in your STEM or earth science classroom when you have small groups construct their own seismographs. A reading assignment on the history of seismographs, the Richter scale, and current technology sets the stage for the...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Failure: Seeds of Innovation
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" Through this assignment, emerging engineers examine how failed experiments are simply part of the process of an outstanding design. They begin with some reading about the microwave oven,...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Chair Lift Challenge
During the Winter Olympics, this would be an engaging task to include in your STEM lesson. Design teams plan, construct, and test a miniature ski lift that can carry a pingpong ball up and down a rope line without falling out. With this...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Pendulum Time
Take your time with this lesson. Junior engineers read about different types of clocks and then work together to build a pendulum time-keeper. There are no hints as to how they might go about accomplishing this complex task, so you may...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Blast Off!
With the use of a model rocket kit, aspiring aerospace engineers work cooperatively to construct and launch a rocket. A preparatory reading assignment is included, covering Newton's laws of motion and information about the first...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Radio Reception and Transmission
After reading about radio transmission, application, and the difference between AM and FM, small teams of engineers use a kit to construct an FM radio and then send and receive broadcasts. This is an ideal activity for middle school STEM...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Stop and Go
It's "Green light, go!" with this lesson! STEM classes are illuminated with the history of traffic signals and how the engineering design has improved over time. They also learn about patents for new inventions. Finally, they research in...
University of Wisconsin
Designing a Rain Garden
Now it's time for all of the data collected in previous lessons to be applied to the design of a rain garden. This resource can only be used as part of the greater whole, since learners will need to rely on gathered knowledge in order to...
Lincoln Public Schools
Cereal Box Project
Challenge your class with this fun and engaging engineering design project. The goal, to create a brand new cereal complete with a list of ingredients, a name and logo, and a box to hold it in. Starting with a survey to determine the...
University of Wisconsin
What’s a Square Foot Anyway? Laying Out the Design Plan
Clever! Participants don square-foot cardboard shoes to mark out the rain garden plot that they have spent the last few weeks designing. In this way, they are practicing scale modeling as well! Note that this lesson is part of a unit,...
Khan Academy
Project: Fish Tank
Create your own exotic aquarium, well, virtual aquarium. Fill it full of various fish and sea life, add animation, color, and interactivity using JavaScript. This task utilizes your classes' knowledge of functions, parameters, and local...
Khan Academy
Project: Bookshelf
Start your own virtual library with this JavaScript programming project. Create arrays of book objects, and fill the shelves with different books, different colors, titles, authors, etc. Let coders create their own unique display.
Khan Academy
Challenge: Movie Reviews
Create an array of objects in a JavaScript coding practice activity. Movie titles and reviews for multiple movies are collected in an array of objects and then printed out with a looping construct.
Khan Academy
Challenge: Picture Painter
Your young coding students will love the result of this programming activity and will be amazed at what they can make the computer do. Using objects and their properties, they will create a paint brush that will redraw an object across...
Khan Academy
Challenge: Constellation Maker
Populate your own universe with constellations and stars. Modify the existing JavaScript code to use the push method of arrays, and mouseX and mouseY to draw a star based on the click and position of the mouse.
Khan Academy
Challenge: Recipe Card
Anyone hungry? Create a recipe object in this coding activity. Include a title, number of servings, and ingredients. All of this adds up to one delicious practice opportunity for your programming students who are just learning how to use...
Khan Academy
Challenge: Favorite Animals
I'm not scared of lions & tigers & bears; in fact, they are on my favorites list! Have your young coders practice creating arrays and using loops. First they define the array as a list of favorite animals, then print them out...
Khan Academy
Challenge: A Loopy Landscape
Drawing trees and grass over and over again is the perfect time to add a while loop to your computer code. This activity guides coders through the steps as they practice using this loop.
Khan Academy
Challenge: Lined Paper
Now create your own graph paper with this JavaScript programming activity! First, change the while loop that draws horizontal lines into a for loop. Then, add another for loop that draws the vertical lines. For an added challenge,...
Khan Academy
Challenge: Favorite Fruits
Creating a list of favorite fruits is the perfect use of an array in coding. Practice defining and using arrays in this simple activity of creating an array and printing out each element in the array.